Where the circumstances are the same, superior success can only be ascribed to superior merit.
 Plutarch, Parallel Lives (c. 100 AD). copy citation

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Author Plutarch
Source Parallel Lives
Topic success merit
Date c. 100 AD
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by A. H. Clough
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/674/674-h/674-h.htm

Context

“The one had brave men under him, the other made his brave, by being over them. And though Philopoemen was unfortunate certainly, in always being opposed to his countrymen, yet this misfortune is at the same time a proof of his merit. Where the circumstances are the same, superior success can only be ascribed to superior merit. And he had, indeed, to do with the two most warlike nations of all Greece, the Cretans on the one hand, and the Lacedaemonians on the other, and he mastered the craftiest of them by art and the bravest of them by valor.” source